There are some readers that might recall that I was the one who argued Land based vacations against Cruise vacations. More to follow on that topic…..

Cabins -
This was our first Cruise and of course we had no idea what to expect. Our party consisted of 4, Mom and Dad and two daughters 18 and 16. We opted for separate cabins and Mom and Dad had an outside balcony cabin and the girls were inside located 2 doors down across the hall. This is where my first warning to new cruisers will come in. Cabin location is EVERYTHING. We were on the Upper deck forward and the balcony cabin was directly in the same hallway that accesses the elevators. The girls cabin was more forward than ours and located directly over the Amber Palace. With the location of each cabin, both were extremely noisy throughout the night and into the early mornings. Very unpleasant. Even though ours was a balcony cabin the noise from the hallway, elevators, room attendants and worker with their carts up and down the hallway all night long was most annoying. The Upper deck itself was nice and we had no complaints about the deck location.

Excursions –
Second warning… try and avoid very early morning excursion departures. Just kind of a pain in the butt is all. Because 3 in our group are certified scuba divers and the other not, we elected to split up into 2 groups of 2 at each island to do out excursions and tours. 2 of us had a 0830 departure for a 2 tank dive in Nassau while the other 2 did the Garden and City tour that departed at 0945. In St. Thomas we all did the Kayak, Hike and Snorkel tour, it was very nice leaving the ship at 0900. The last stop was in St, Marrten which we found by far to be our favorite island. 2 of us did the Golden Eagle Catamaran tour departing at 0900 and the other 2 did the easy wreck dive departing not until 145 in the afternoon. The time differences were nice and allowed each group a little extra shopping time in the downtown areas of each island.

Food –
Very good but also very average at times. It was nice to be able to get something to eat anytime you wanted it and of course the unlimited room service was a big hit with the girls. Our dining room was the “Golden” dining room and it was nice. We unexpectedly ended up with just a table for the 4 of us and our servers were very nice. Again the food was good just not great. I was a bit disappointed with the Lobster. It was just not very good at all. The much-talked about Chocolate melting cake was also just good not great.

The Ship –
Very nice, very well kept and fairly easy to get around. Pools WAY to small and over crowed. Lounge chairs, I read many many times before we left that you were not suppose to “reserve” or “hold” chairs if your not going to immediately use them. Sorry folks I found out the hard way the early bird gets the worm. Sorry if that upsets people but when in Rome do as the Romans do. That’s all I can say.

Overall Experience –
On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the best, we’d rate the whole trip as a 7+. The noisy rooms really had a lot to do with the rating. Now the big answer everyone has been waiting for…..Land based vs. Cruise. We had a really great time on the Cruise. However, we didn’t have $6000 dollars worth of fun. The shows nor the casinos or even the unlimited food really didn’t mean that much to us. We were there for the different islands, excursions, sun and people watching.

I had a oceanview room on the 10th deck #10-04. It was all the way forward. I had great views from my window. And even better views if I walked outside on-deck. The door to the outside was right next to the door to my room. Fortunately for me, maybe my room was so high-up, it was quiet and peaceful with no noise from the Amber Palace Showroom.

I cruised solo (as usual).

My dinning room was the Golden Dinning Room. I had a table on the second level and port side on the opposite side of the main atrium (all the way aft?).

My head waiter was Jawa from Mauritius. My assistant waiter was Igor from Croatia. They both were very good. Jawa kept bringing extra entreés to me, so I got stuffed-full every night. Igor was a young guy who was rather quiet, but he did a very good job (maybe assistant waiters keep quiet while the head waiters do most of the talking?).

I found the food, IMHO, to be very good. One night I had NY strip steak. The other night, I had Prime Rib. I could have had lobster tail if only I wasn't allergic to it . I also liked the Sushi Bar on the Promenade Deck and The Grille in the aft Adult section of the Lido deck very much. Considering the cruise fair was only around $650, the food was excellent.

The entertainment was pretty good. You had really pretty dancing girls. Two featured singers: this blonde girl and this Vietnamese-American guy. There was some really funny stand-up comics. Especially this really funny black guy from Tampa who did the late night R rated routine on the 4th night.

Yes, I thought pools were really small, too. I did not swim in them, so it didn't matter to me.

The Lido deck wasn't all that good. There were allot of steps to go up and down. I think the man who designed the GLory and her sister ships was thinking about the terraced rice patties of Asia when he designed the Lido decks.

But all in all I had a GREAT TIME on my cruise on the Glory! I would highly reccomend it to anyone. Especially considering how little I spent on my cruisefare, I don't think I could get a better cruise for the price.